John's Day Off
by Pantharya
Summary: John's Life is painfully monotonous, yet this is all about to change for the better or worse when he is drawn into a world of danger and excitement - quite unwillingly, he may add. Madness Ensues. Tifa, Leon, Sakuya, Leon, Lucca and too many more.
1. Chapter 1 Milk

It was in the morning that John's day began. His story, however, begins shortly after midday, because everything before this point was painfully uneventful. If it had just been one uneventful morning, John may have escaped the following descriptors, yet as it was, it was not just this morning that was painfully uneventful. It was, in fact, his entire life.

Now, John was not a zombie. Nor was he listening to his iPod Nano while drinking lemonade. He also liked to think that he did not have The Cholera, but he wasn't entirely certain over just what that entailed - besides the intense schizophrenia. No, John was a text book example of the rare personality dysfunction known as being utterly boring. This had developed to such an extent that John possessed an intense fear of anything even slightly interesting, and the details of his life followed this to the letter. While this would be the most suitable time to describe these details, the sheer monotony of their very existence drives any author to tears before they can finish transcribing them. Thus, it remains safer for us all without knowing the exact details of John's 'life' before this point.

As it was, on this particular afternoon John would encounter something in particular that would forever change his life. It should be noted that this feat was not decisively hard to pull off - an excessively coloured napkin could have achieved the same effect. However, the event in itself happened to be so aggressively interesting to even an averagely monotonous person that they could not escape a detailed account.

And so the events began, rather interestingly, with the appearance of a waffle.

As it happens, John had never seen a waffle, nor had he ever eaten one. On the other hand, this could be attributed to the fact that he did not own a waffle iron - clearly a crime against nature. John tilted his head slightly in thought of how such a beast would be in his living room, but soon the mundanity of it all came rushing back to him like a bad metaphor.

John shook his head and strode into the kitchen - it wasn't so much 'striding' as it was a mediocre sort of walk, something so bland and borish that this author would not bother regailing you with the minute details of its unimpressiveness. Opening his refrigerator, John glanced in and pulled out a bottle of water. He took a large drink of it and placed it back in the fridge, drawing a line at the precise water level as he always did with a permanent marker.

He turned around and againcaught a glance of the gleaming, obtrusive waffle, almost mocking him with its very existence from within the living room. It sat cold (at least he assumed) on the coffee table, right next to his favourite copy of The Scarlet Letter. He closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. This would be otherwise referred to as a 'sigh', but as the situation was, his exhalation was so weak and uninteresting that it ended up more of a 'puh' then a 'sigh'.

He turned back to his kitchen and made his way to the cabinet, grabbing a box of gratuitiously unappetizing bran flakes. John poured himself a bowl, passed over to the refrigerator, opened it and reached inside, feeling around in the usual spot. He did not, however, find his bottle of milk. His eyes widened slightly and he leaned forward to be absolutely sure.

He peered in the icebox and there it was; no milk. A small bead of sweat rolled down from his forehead to his cheek as he shut the door. John leaned up and checked the calendar on the door of the machine. He blinked at it uncomprehendingly. It was currently the 14th. The grocery day was _always_ on the 15th of every month. _I **always** have milk until grocery day, _he thought forcefully, as if reciting the fact would rectify all that was currently wrong in his universe_. _He slowly placed his bowl of unmilked cereal on the otherwise empty counter - the bowl being the only thing out at the time. John's kitchen was beautiful to the unitiated as it seemed almost perfectly spotless. It was only upon closer inspection that one could see a fine layer of dust across all the counters, as well as most of the cabinets. John may have a lovely clean kitchen, but this was only due to non-useage. Most of the space in there was just that to him, space, and filling that space would encroach on his personal sense of saftey. As John always said, an empty house was a safe house.

John went back to his living room and sat himself down at the couch. The waffle was still staring at him defiantly, almost demanding his attention. He closed his eyes again and for the first time in his life, John made a spontaneous decision. The thought of it was almost heart palpitating, but as it needed to be done, it needed to be done. John slowly put his shoes on - generic brown hushpuppies to be precise, not that there was any need to be.

Defying the safety of his daily routine, John stepped out onto his front porch. He look outside at the amazing skyline, and took a deep breath.

"It's time to go shopping..."


	2. Chapter 2 Still No Milk

Ha! Welcome to Chapter two! Where the fun characters start to appear. Not in much frequency at first, but they ARE appearing. Progress!

A big thank you to all our rabid fans who have reviewed so far (HI EMILY). ENJOY!

* * *

**Chapter Two - Still no Milk**

As simple and noble as John's intentions were, he did not get very far before being confronted with something altogether outside his normal comfort zone - unplanned conversation. It was just as he was taking the final steps off his short and stout driveway and onto the footpath that his quest was brought to a crashing halt.

"Excuse me, John?"

With these momentous words, John was forced to abandon his careful paces and confront the sizeable intrusion into his comfort zone. This intrusion as such was indeed a woman. A _tall_ woman with long black hair, and shining brownish-red eyes. She wore a sleeveless black shirt with a pair of knee length shorts, preceding a long coattail extending all the way down to her black laced shoes. A pouch was draped down around her waist, with a decidedly book shaped bulge protruding outwards. He had no time to be intimidated, or to panic. John was forced to abandon all trains of inner thought completely and throw himself out onto the harsh gravel of spontaneous speech. It hurt.

"Uhh ... yes?" On a normal day John would have been very proud of this sound reply. Yet today was far from a normal day, in both what was yet to come as well as the current milk catastrophe. As it was, John didn't have a spare second to even reflect upon his momentary victory over the dastardly forces of spontaneity.

"I'm sorry, sir, you're going to have to come with us." It was at this point where several key features of the situation finally dawned on John. She had identified him by name. She clearly knew where he lived. There was something happening that he did NOT plan. And perhaps the very worst, she was VERY tall.

Whereas a normal person would consider all kinds of spur of the moment explanations, ranging from the FBI tracking their illegal music collection or a rogue alien about to abduct him for hideous probing experiments, any explanation this interesting would not have occurred to John even on a normal day at home wrapped tightly in his safety blanket with mister snuggle bunny. No, the worst thing John could summon to mind was something he periodically held an intense fear of – were his library books late?

Technically, no, they could not be. He had only withdrawn them a week ago and they were not due back for another three weeks at the very least. Yet, this was a man whose entire sense of stability had been thrown into chaos at the very impossibility of running out of milk a full day before schedule; a feat made statistically unimpossible by his very precise and calculated use of any liquid in his household. Perhaps even in spite of the receipt pinned very carefully next to his calendar, John hadn't issued the books out at all! Was he in possession of unissued books? The very thought was horrifying. John's entire sense of self being was being questioned before he even had the time to blink.

Were the librarians closing in to extract a detailed account of his extensive literature thievery? Was he going to have to think up a perfectly good reason as to why he had illegally made off with _A Detailed Guide to Human Anatomy: The Un-illustrated Version _and _1001 Knitting Patterns; for Every Skill Level from the Beginner to the Very, Very Old Woman_? Was he going to have monetary FINES imposed on his account?

The terrifying range of possibilities were too much for John to handle, well, ever. The world spun. Darkness closed in. Librarians spun before John's very eyes. Before the other speaker had time to react, John had collapsed onto the pavement.

Through murky thoughts and hazy darkness John could hear an unfamiliar voice – the very worst kind.

"-back into his house...pretty shaken.... think he's onto us already."

The words made no sense to John at all. Clearly, this was one of those rabid hallucinations one only had when consuming expired milk. John definitely did not remember consuming any such dairy product whatsoever, yet memory was eluding him at the moment, so he opted to take the safest option; lie still. After a short pause the voice continued.

"No. Nothing at all. We checked."

With a loud and totally mental gasp John suddenly remembered. The intimidating librarian lady. The lack of milk. The books! Were they searching for them? Had they taken him hostage within his very own home to interrogate him about their whereabouts? John's head began to swim again and he very nearly passed out once more. Every point of John's body wanted to shudder with the sense of discomfort and vulnerability. Before he could think any further, the voice continued.

"No no, we checked there too," there was a slight pause and the very faint sound of a phone being switched from ear to ear, "Yes Leon, there too. There's nothing here. The house barely looks lived in." Another short pause. "Look, if you wanna come in here and look for yourself, then be my guest! I'm not _touching _another room of this place till this guy wakes up. It's just plain freaky."

There was an aggressive click and an exasperated sigh, a decidedly feminine one at that. This all very much backed up John's librarian-interrogation theory, and so he quivered silently where he lay – refusing to open his eyes even slightly as if he could will the day back to how it had been _before _his life had been torn to pieces. He remembered a millennia ago when he had been quite happily living with his carefully calculated milk levels and mildly occupying library books that were most definitely _not _overdue. Yet no matter how John tried, his powers over the space-time continuum seemed to have remained unchanged. And he had no plan B.


	3. Chapter 3 Misery Loves Company

Heya, author 2 here, and this chapter is finally done!  
It wasn't too painful, but then again I DO have fillings (lol)  
I thought it was something presentable, after a tonne of editing however.  
But in the end as long as my Nicky enjoyed it I'm happy ^_^

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 3 - Misery loves Company**

There was a knock - forceful but not breaking - at the door. A fall of footsteps and a loud click sounded as the door creaked open.

"What do you mean you can't find it? It's not like it's a book or anything..."

"Well Leon, it's not exactly like I know what we're looking for here."

Leon stepped across the room, his hard shoes flopping on John's new carpet with a force John didn't care to think about. The man stopped and looked almost directly at John. John could almost fully describe what the man was wearing, but the only thing that came to mind was 'No man should own that many belts, let alone wear them all at the same time.'

He peered down and his eyes thinned slightly. An almost creepy smile crept across the man's face as he barked a laugh.

"Ah, that's where I left this thing..." He reached down and John almost screamed as Leon's and brushed over his copy of the Scarlet Letter, but it stopped right after, and snapped up the Waffle, the one thing that John couldn't explain in his home, aside from the lack of milk ..and the rabid librarians.

Leon brought the waffle to his lips, and bit down.

"A bit cold, but whatever..." He quickly downed it and headed towards the kitchen. "Tifa, I'm gonna steal a bit more of this guy's milk…Cover for me."

At this, John opened his eyes a bit more and took a more detailed look at the man. He was about the same height as the woman, and similarly coloured. John often associated colours with people as to not bother himself with the oft ever changing facial expressions of everyone he had encountered. He even did this at work, quite frequently calling their most valuable customer "Mr. Orangey-Yellow " instead of the more difficult to remember "P. Mann."

Now, however, wasn't the prime time to be thinking of work. In recognition of this fact, quickly John came back to reality; it felt like a crashing in his heart. The truth of the situation fell upon him. He closed his eyes tightly and swallowed deep. He then shouted at the intruders.

"Okay! I'll give you what you want!"

Sitting up, John snapped his gaze to the woman in front of him. He raised his arms, almost surrendering himself to her and her compadre.

"If you let me go I'll give you exactly what you're looking for!"

The woman looked confused. John stood up quickly from the couch and moved towards his shelf. He reached over, past his first edition copy of "Joey the Sparrow goes Shopping for Laundry Soap", his favorite childhood story, and grabbed a large tome. He held it out far from himself, hands shaking almost violently.

The dark haired woman stepped towards John. John reached as far forward with his book as he could, trying to pass it to her. He assumed she was 'Tifa' because it sounded a whole lot more womanly than 'Leon'. She took the volume from him and looked it over.

"Club Soda and Many Other Cures for Chocolate Stains - Volume Four?" She raised her eyes and looked back at John, puzzled. He shook his head and closed his eyes.

"I know that's what you want. I've had it checked out for 7 days, but I guess it's a reference book and I went overdue. So just take it, and things can just go back to normal."

Tifa looked from the book to John and back again, an almost exasperated look on her face. An almost piercing silence rang through the house, until it was shattered a moment later.

"Hey! Guy! You're out of Milk!" Leon shouted from the kitchen before slamming John's refrigerator door. John cringed.

"Wait. What?" Tifa looked back down at the book and then continued "I'm pretty sure we're not looking for this..." She passed the book back to John, and he held it against himself, still wondering what these odd folks wanted from him.

Tifa started again. "Look, John, I know you know who we are and what we want, and I'm pretty sure you know that we know that you know that this book isn't it." John almost passed out again from the absurd overuse of complex sentences. His face grew red, not of anger but of absolute flusteration.

She stepped forward and John stepped back. A few more steps and John felt something that shouldn't have been there. Leon was standing right behind him, and with almost sadistic glee, he leaned across and smiled at John.

"Look, buddy, I'm not here to toy around, just give us what we want, and we'll be on our way.

For the second time that day John's head rushed, his eyes fell backwards and he collapsed on the ground. As he crumpled to the floor John vaguely processed the sight of three more figures entering through his front door. _My gods_, he thought, _I just vacuumed. _

* * *

"Simple and clean is the way John's house needs to beeeeee tonight."

Review? =D


	4. Chapter 4 New Strategy

As the darkness gradually receded, John found himself once again lying on his couch, with his eyes closed, and with strange voices talking around him. This time however, he was prepared. Clearly opening his eyes had been a bad strategy. This time he would try the more appealing path of keeping his eyes shut until they all just left. As he tried very hard not to move in any manner at all, John simply listened to the tones of the strange voices, vainly searching for an indication that they would give up waiting for him and just decide to go home and take all their strangely appearing waffles and dirty shoe marks with them. Good Riddance!

The voices continued, however, with no indication of leaving, and so John settled down to the rather dangerous seeming task of actually listening to their words. It seemed risky, but as any avid follower of _The Indepth guide to Efficient Blinking and Eyelid Movement _would know, the best way to convincingly not move was to focus on something else. As the book was firmly out of reach, John settled down to listen.

"-what do you mean it isn't here? The location was exact. The mistress is never wrong."

The voice was clearly female, yet cold and without excitement. Quite frankly it was John's kind of voice, yet there was a dangerous edge that made John immediately regret his decision to listen to it. It was the kind of voice that would calmly relate that your tea was getting cold while doing something utterly bloodchilling. Like removing the _Do not remove _labels from mattresses. Oh, the fiends! Clearly this voice was a reddish-grey one.

"I don't think he knows what we're looking for. If ....Well, If you had seen how scared he had been, maybe you'd think so too. He was terrified."

This voice he knew already. It was synonymous with the woman who had confronted him in his living room the last time he had attempted being conscious. For the sake of John's mental filing purposes not knowing the meaning of the word 'assumptions', he replaced 'Tifa' with 'Miss Yellow.' It was safer that way for now.

"Perhaps he has been consorting with the enemy and did not wish to be found out. A spy of some sorts."

This most recent speaker was male, yet not the male he had encountered earlier. Certainly more sophisticated and noble sounding, with almost a British tinge to his accent. Blue was certainly the colour for this one.

"Nah, the guy's a wimp. And a nutcase. He actually thought we were after his library card or something."

_This _was the voice of the waffle man. His laid back offensiveness certainly hadn't faded. He would now be 'Mr Maple', the colour of the dastardly syrup on that evil monstrosity the man had left in his lounge. John's sense of security was recovering as he logically sorted these dangerous encroachments into his else wise safe reality. Colour coding made the problem seem much more manageable. You know, as long as he kept his eyes firmly shut.

"Oh come on, that's a bit harsh." Miss Yellow was defending him it seemed. John did not know what to make of that.

"Has anyone else considered the possibility that it's not an item we're looking for after all?"

This was a new voice to John's ear, another female. For the sake of rainbow completion he labelled her 'purple' and left it at that. A small silence followed her question before she started to speak again.

"... I guess not then. Well, what if, instead of an ITEM that will solve all our problems ... well, that is, what if it's HIM that will do this?"

Another silence followed this proposition, before everyone decided to speak at once.

"What?!"

"Him?!"

"No way!"

"Nahuh! I was the chosen one! Not this crack job"

"To be fair, we don't know that-"

"SHE CHOSE ME!"

"QUIET!"

It happened too fast for John to catch any of the colours of the sudden outburst, but he could easily pick the following voice as being the reddish-grey one. The one that spoke of cleaning and throwing knives in the same tone. The scary one.

"The matter is a simple one. We simply take this John back with us and get the mistress to confirm. She will know the answer."

As the other colours considered this, Miss Yellow poised a soft question. "Leon?"

"Yeah?" Two voices had responded, yet after a snort of amusement only one continued, "What?"

"What if this guy really IS the chosen one? He doesn't look like he can fight. He can barely handle two strangers before passing out."

"He doesn't exactly seem the exciting type. I mean, look at this." There was the sound of hands handling a book. The waffle fiend was touching his books again! "All the juicy bits have been edited out!"

"That book wasn't exactly interesting to begin with," Miss Yellow replied. Clearly she had twisted concepts of what was 'interesting' and what was 'enjoyable'_. _This reminded John of the time where someone had suggested the Bible as a nice, monotonous read. John had quite frankly never encountered so much violence and murder in a single book in his entire life! You simply did not find lions eating people, bears mauling teenagers and gods smiting all living things with a deadly flood in _Norbet Fingleberry's Guide to Effective Spelling and Punctuation_. Nobody got eaten in THAT book, oh no, not ever. Mister Maple, however, seemed to share Yellow's taste in horrifying literature.

"My point exactly! The sex was the only thing that redeemed it! Editing it out is like putting food in plastic containers because the wrappers are too exciting."

"Ah. I see I'm not the only one who's seen this guy's kitchen," Sir Blue added quickly.

"I think we are missing the fundamental problem here." The mysterious Purple voice was talking again, with the faint sound of blocked noses and broken glasses. "If this guy _is_ the chosen one, then how exactly do we hypothesize a method of bringing him along without him losing consciousness again?"

Silence followed her question again. Purple seemed to inspire this rather well.

"Suppose we could just make everything seem REALLY boring?" Miss Yellow again. The proposal seemed rather appealing to John's mind. Well, apart from the prospect of actually going with these crazy people at all. Yet as things were, the mere mention of 'boring' in this situation was just plain alluring.

"I'unno," Blue interjected, "We'd need someone _actually_ smart to pull that off."

"HEY!"

"That's not really helping Leon," Yellow was talking once more. After Maple carelessly snorted as a reply, Reddish-Grey contributed with her emotionlessly intimidating voice.

"We should all just return to the mistress and sort this out there."

"Do we take him with us?" Oh no. No they couldn't. John squeezed his eyes tighter shut with the faint hope of willing them out of existence.

"Well, we certainly can't let the enemy get to him first. You know ... vampires and the like." Maple actually managed to sound rather like he was thinking this time around. This was a surprise to John. He hadn't seemed capable of anything but smug retorts earlier. Apparently Blue was baffled by his suggestion, however.

"What would a vampire be doing all the way here?"

"Shut up!" The angry hiss seemed to come from Reddish-Grey, yet all emotionlessness had been abandoned, leaving just the scary intimidating part. It would've been enough to make John cower had he not instinctively started recalling book passages to calm himself down -_language performance is the externalization of competence, and through the rules of language the essentiality of composure can be attained­-_

"Ah... my sincerest apologies, Miss Sakuya."

"Let's just go." Maple's suggestion was followed by the distinctive sound of a chair creaking in the manner of one standing up.

"No, wait!" The creaking sound occurred again as Yellow continued talking. "We should wait for him to wake up first. He may panic if we just kidnap him."

"Oh?" Purple enquired in a rather confused voice, "But he already IS awake. His breathing patterns became irregular any number of moments ago. See? Right there. He's listening."

A short silence fell as John's mind raced with panic. Apparently keeping his eyes shut wasn't going to work either, and now he was going to have to _open them_. As the sound of footsteps told him someone was swiftly approaching him all John could do was think the most objectionable language he could ever remember using. _Oh darn! OhdarnohdarnohDARN!_

* * *

Don't you love how stories rapidly spiral out of small ideas into pieces of writing far longer than even you first expected?

No?

Well in anycase, you've made it chapter four! This calls for a celebration does it not? I would suggest something malty. Perhaps those cookies. On the topic of the story however, the cast is rapidly expanding, with many more gratuitous references just around the corner. Seriously, if you get them all, you'd need a medal of some kind. Even _I _don't get them all.

And you know, if you've made it this far without being utterly scared away, I'd like to hear what you think of it so far. Hint! There's a button! Just below! RIGHT THERE! Yes, That's the one!

=D


	5. Chapter 5 The Early Ties of Trust

**Chapter Five - The Early Ties of Trust**

John had been found out.

Rather than bolting quickly to his feet, he stopped and realized that someone was walking towards him. They could only have been a living room away, and he hadn't gotten around to measuring that distance as of yet. It did, however, seem like a fun way to spend an evening, so he made a mental note that if he ever made it out of this crazy situation he would do this sometime.

The footsteps grew nearer, and John instinctively clenched his fist along with any other muscles he had clenching control over. The other ones wouldn't submit to his clenching though, as much as he hated to admit not having complete control over all his bodily organs. His hearts and lungs seemed to want to beat and pulse on their own, and this was oft times more annoying than useful, as the heart was never static and the lungs weren't always clear. It all seemed too untidy to John.

The loud footsteps ended and John knew whomever had started towards him had now stopped. Instead the footsteps were replaced with another unsettling noise; a loud thump - and then John knew someone was sitting on his living room table. Great, now there would be those disastrous indentations in his carpet. He always hated those. Even if you vacuumed them profusely they never stood level with the rest of the carpet again. John solemnly knew he'd be at it though. It was a good thing he always had a full supply of Industrial Carpet Cleaner in his hall closet. Thinking of this made him slightly nostalgic and he almost lost himself remembering the Christmas he had acquired that never ending stock. '96, the year of a thousand carpet cleanings...

John was brought back to reality as he heard someone shuffling next to him, sounding almost as if inching closer to him. He wasn't totally sure about this though, and that was a feeling he hated as much as he did that spot on the ceiling he couldn't get out no matter how hard he tried. Not even with the pressure washer he borrowed from his aunt. If the intruding noises hadn't gotten the hint yet, John was quite prepared to lose himself in analogies whenever anything tried to get him to acknowledge his situation. He was quite happy with his eyes shut thank you very much. A silence hushed over the room, and then ... nothing.

Then he felt it. What to anyone else would've just been a harmless prank - a pinch on the nose to be exact - to John this was an immediate endangerment to his life.

Not even for a second did John hold his breath, he immediately shot open his eyes and mouth, gasping desperately for air. He had been violated! and not the first time today either. In a mad panic to wildly escape this savage attack John threw his arms out and flopped noisily on the floor.

Without pausing, John scrambled into his kitchen on all fours, quickly moving behind his trusty marble countertop. He wished he could have shut the door behind him to lock those invaders out – but sadly he had removed them all from his home years previously, save for the front and back doors of course. He justified this with the fact that they were unpredictable and noisy. Some even swung the opposite way from others! This would NOT do. John had lamented afterwards however, as Door Polishing was one of his favourite household chores.

Leaning back against his kitchen's centrepiece and hugging his knees tightly, John waxed melancholy for a moment. In a vain attempt to escape the situation in the only way he knew how, he threw his mind out to the nearest piece of furniture to inner monologue about it. He still vividly remembered when he had first bought the centrepiece to his kitchen, when it had still possessed its checkerboard tiles. He remembered removing all the alternating white ones and replacing them with black. Looking at its original state had always reminded him of a particularly exciting game of chess, and this was not what one thought about – well, ever, but especially not when one ate breakfast.

As John zoned back into reality he realised with horror that the group of people had surrounded him in the kitchen on both sides. John would have passed out again, but one of them spoke before he could react.

"John, calm down, we're only here to help you."

John looked puzzled - well more puzzled than usual. The woman, Miss Yellow, leaned down and smiled at him, her black hair swaying as she did so. "I promise that we're not going to hurt you." John looked up at her. He normally would have dismissed this off as a lie, but for some reason she seemed like she was telling the truth. He wasn't going to fully trust her of course, but he was forced to think. _If they were going to attack me, they would have done this already..._

John stood up awkwardly and looked at everyone in the room. Or at least he made the motion of doing so. He was far too distracted by the feelings of fear, anxiety, and that mild bout of confusion that still sat in his throat to take in any of their appearances. The feelings spiked, almost cursing at him. He did his best to gulp them down and then turned to Miss Yellow. He felt that if he could talk to anyone, she was the one he could trust. Well, semi-trust. Temporarily.

"Ah... well, hrm," was all he could get out. Tifa took this as a question.

"Well, since we don't know what we're looking for, and neither do you, we were thinking that you could come with us and our leader could sort this out." Leave his house with them?! John stepped back a step, bumping into his bowl of cereal, promptly knocking it over on the counter.

"But the- she, ah..." Tifa stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"John," she said finally, "Our leader is at a ...very big museum." John's face betrayed his thoughts and immediately reflected his interest.

"What kind?" Everyone crossed their arms in thought, before they all fired off random thoughts.

"Library."

"Mundane Items?"

"Deactivated Cannons!"

"Mummies!"

"Frozen Water!"

Tifa struggled not to laugh at the situation.

"Yeah, John, it's the Museum of rare books, dusty old mundane items and... and frozen water." She smiled hopefully.

John nodded.

* * *

All your questions will be answered SOON!

= D


	6. Chapter 6 Leavetakings

MANY things contributed to the delay of this chapter. It's actually been written for around a week or so, but my editor has been "Out of Action" per say, *coughlazycough*. = D But It's finally here. Chapter Five! Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Five - Leavetakings**

It was settled then. John would accompany the crazy people to their museum. It was just a museum after all; a nice, safe and comfortably mundane museum. Surely it couldn't hurt. They usually had rather effective carpet cleaner at places like museums.

As John nervously flicked his eyes around the room and then quickly back to his safe spot on the wall he couldn't help but notice that everyone's eyes were still on him. Now that wasn't fair. He had already agreed to their crazy scheme; surely now they would let him stop shaking with nerves and slip silently back into the background.

Perhaps these people wanted something else. John searched his mind for any dregs of useful information he may have absorbed from_ Supreme Etiquette of Flashing Aid in Encroachment Neighbour, Translate with Swift for your Pleasure_, then he remembered that it had made no sense whatsoever. He was rather fearfully left to come up with a response on his own, and this was something John avoided as avidly as cat avoided acting in a way that made any sense.

In a rather exhausting effort to seem polite, John inquired in the direction of Tifa's shoes as to whether anyone wanted a drink. This must have been the right thing to ask as after a momentary pause it was met with an outbreak of excited whispering between two of the female voices, a quick clinking of teacups, and before John could even debate whether he should look up or not a cup of tea was promptly being pushed into his hands. It was warm to the touch and was in a rather odd looking cup of patterned porcelain. The fact that they had apparently misinterpreted his offer completely would have seemed much less strange to John if he had actually _owned _any teacups in the first place, yet even so he was quite frankly much too afraid to actually refuse anything from the rather intimidating inhabitants of his kitchen. Thus, in a rather rushed effort to seem polite to the people he was still too intimidated to look directly at, John drank the tea.

It did not occur to John at this moment to think about any of the implications of the situation he had found himself in. He did not ponder why for any reason strange people would want _him _to go to their museum, nor did he wonder for what purpose they needed him or something from his home. It seemed his subconscious had rather neatly seized the first opportunity to cease his repetitively increasing stress levels by shutting out all suspicious ponderings altogether. John was thus left incapable of thinking logically through the situation and was only able to mildly accept the fact that accompanying total strangers with too many belts to a museum he had never heard of was a perfectly sound idea. As his central rationality system slowly numbed his usual thought processes, John lost his ability to throw himself into a frenzied panic at every instance.

At least, this was how his subconscious explained what was happening. It was, of course, completely ignoring the possibility that something may have been in that tea. Thus, in wild contrast to anything John had been expecting, he was left feeling rather giddy. He was on his way to a museum to see the strictest librarian there ever was. Surely someone of such a status would have a library as plain and uninteresting as he could possibly imagine. There simply wasn't any downside to this plan. John concluded that this was just the kind of thing he needed after a day of so much stress - he had certainly earned something as mundane as this. He vaguely tried to recall a similar situation in one of his prized pieces of literature, yet he strangely found himself unable to recall any book titles at all for the moment. He settled on the name "Happy Valley Goose Bay" as he read it off an envelope he had pinned to the wall for some reason he could not recall. What a nice name that was. It'd be perfect for a cat, you know, if John didn't object to cats because of ... well, he couldn't quite remember why he didn't have a cat. Perhaps he should get one. Then he could name it Gappy Balley Moose Day. Yes, perfect.

It was then that John realised a conversation was going on. He decided it was probably wise to start paying attention to it as he rocked on his heels slowly, staring at the roof with a smile. What a lovely colour it was.

"Why didn't you do this earlier Sakuya?" Apparently Tifa was questioning someone. John couldn't quite see who it was from his view of the ceiling, but he recognised the replying voice as Miss Reddish-Grey.

"Quite honestly, I was in favour of using my knives first"

"...Oh."

"Don't worry Tifa" Purple suddenly piped in, "The Tea is perfectly safe. The consumption merely reduces one's perception and ability to deduce-" She finished her sentence in a squeal as mister Maple rather promptly stood on her foot, quite hard from the sound of it. Miss Purple busied herself hopping around the kitchen in pain as Tifa turned to John with a pained smile and said "Alright, ready to go?"

It had taken John a peaceful moment to realise there had been words accompanying her mouth movements, making him nod eagerly after he realised it was in fact a question, and directed at him. Tifa smiled wide and turned to the others, who nodded in approval. _What fun_, he thought, as he tried to continue the trend by nodding once again. Sadly he only received a raised eyebrow from the man with too many belts. John barely repressed the urge to suddenly giggle.

It was in this thoughtless daze that John was swiftly herded out of his house and onto the pavement as one of the odd people struggled with the rather rusty looking door on their rather rusty looking white van parked outside. John occupied himself by waving goodbye to his house. It seemed quite odd, leaving it under such circumstances. He wondered if it would miss him. He was quite tempted to say a eulogy of some kind; it was like the end of an era. He couldn't recall which era this was the end of, or even where the words had come from, but they were accompanied by the thought that gum would be perfection right about now, and that it would probably be wise to share some with Princess Consuela Banana Hammock. Somehow this all made logical sense to John, who nodded in happy approval of his thoughts - drawing a few anxious glances from the fish people who had turned up in his muffin palace.

"Dilly Dally Shilly Shally!" He said abruptly, turning back to the vanmobile and receiving a rather pained expression from Tifa as a result.

"Dude," Mister Maple said lazily, "That guy are sick."

"IS" Purple prompted.

"It was a reference, dweeb"

"That's what you always sa-"

"That's enough" the one with the reddish-grey voice interrupted. John was quite curious to observe that she was wearing some type of maid's outfit. It consisted of a long blue dress with a white frilly apron and short puffy sleeves. Her hair was silver and barely met her shoulders, though two braids hung down on either side of her face. Her face, he noted, was completely expressionless as she shifted her weight from one black booted foot to the other. After blinking a few times slowly John realised she was in fact considering him with her unblinking eyes. No, wait, there. She did blink. Excellent.

"Perhaps introductions are in order," she offered tonelessly to the air around her. It must have been a good suggestion, as the one who had been struggling with the rusty door handle gave up with a slumping of his shoulders and turned to face John, extending his hand politely.

"My name is Leon Belmont. It is most certainly a pleasure to meet your acquaintance." Ah, this was Mister Blue. He was dressed rather oddly, even for these people. His clothes had a look that suggested that perhaps they belonging to some kind of nobleman several centuries earlier, with elegant boots, gauntlets, and a really fancy coat thing with a high red collar that looked almost like a cape in the way it extended all the way down to the ground. His hair was blonde and ended in rather noticeable curls. Perhaps he was from the museum's bad-fashion-from-the-past exhibition or some such. Noticing that he still had his hand extended, John slapped his hand in a high-five and nearly giggled. Why someone would try high-five him that low was beyond him completely. Apparently this Leon was just as baffled as he walked a few paces away with a confused look on his face.

Next Tifa was standing in front of John, smiling at him politely and happily saying "I'm Tifa". Her shiny black clothes were every bit as black and shiny as they had been earlier by his mailbox, yet she certainly seemed prettier now that John was actually looking at her instead of fainting. Her lack of sleeves combined with her black leather gloves made her somehow seem far too strong for someone so thin, yet her long black hair and gentle smile made her come across as the nicest person of the group. It befit the colour yellow quite accurately, and John couldn't help but smile in his rather well picked choice of voice-coding.

To contrast Tifa's friendly prettiness, the next girl was something completely at odds with such a description. She had thick round glasses and a helmet, completed by an orange dressy-shirt-thing and a really large spanner in her hands. He identified her as Miss Purple when she introduced herself as actually being Lucca, and a genius, and completely opposed to anything Leon said or did. At this the mentioned Leon with the many belts straightened from leaning against the van and merely nodded at him, saying "Leon", and letting John fill in the rest of the sentence. Leon was still as curious as John had first noted. He wore an admirable amount of belts, a really short blue vest over a white shirt and some kind of lion shaped pendant around his neck. He also had a long amount of brown hair and a noticeable scar across his face – quite possibly from taxes, John surmised. They were quite dangerous things.

Lastly John turned to the one in the maid outfit, who simply stared at him. John was overcome with the distinct impression that he would normally be scared or intimidated by this, yet all he could think of at the moment was how she seemed like the most illogical choice for a maid ever. Perhaps this library was rather short on staff at the moment. Someone offered that her name was Sakuya, to which she slowly turned back to the van and opened the door in a single smooth motion. Leon snorted and the other blue sounding Leon muttered something rather British sounding under his breath as he trudged around to the back of the van and yanked open the wide back doors. The doors apparently objected to this idea greatly, as they squealed far too loudly and hung rather limply on only one of the two available bolts holding them to the frame. Apparently this was the most unrepaired van in history, and was quite possibly taken straight from one of their exhibits. Perhaps in one of those "look how close we can get something to look broken and still somehow work" section. How nice of them to bring half their museum with them to pick him up.

A hand on John's shoulder rather firmly guided him around to the back of the van, thus presenting him with the rather intimidating task of getting into the highly unsanitary looking van. The whole inside was rusty and smelled strongly of cinnamon. There were two seats that lined each side of the van, and everything was that very unappealing chrome colour; the curved ceiling, walls, metal benches, floor, and even the small rectangular sign that read "Mind Your Head". The imminent feeling of giddiness slowly receded as John realised he was meant to climb _into _this thing and _sit _in it. Quite honestly, he felt like he would immediately regret this decision. As if seeking advice he glanced down and caught sight of the number plate. 5YLVARD. Well, that didn't seem too menacing. Perhaps it wouldn't be too bad. He could at the very least pretend it was clean. Maybe there was more tea inside.

And so John took a very deep breath and crawled up into the rear of the van, sitting himself as far into it as he could on the left bench. He was promptly followed by the other members of crazy town. Tifa climbed in and sat herself next to him, and the Lucca girl sat next to her as Belt Leon hunched in onto the opposite bench, quickly followed by the British Leon, as the maid lady climbed into the driver's seat. Then someone shut the door. The world was plunged into darkness.

Darkness...? Wait, this wasn't fun.

It was at this point that John realised with a slowly encroaching feeling of horror what he had done. He had just climbed into a collapsing rusty death trap with five of the weirdest looking people John had ever seen in his entire life. How had he let this happen?! It was all he could do to not break out into ragged breaths and hug himself as tight as he could. Then he was jolted backwards as the van abruptly started, banging his head roughly on the metal interior. NOW he was breathing raggedly and hugging himself. He squeezed his eyes as shut as they would go and frantically wished in his mind that this day had never happened at all.

"Oi, Tifa, He's having another fit."

In an instant Tifa was up in his space, rubbing his back gently and making soothing noises. As much as John HATED people in his space, he had to admit to himself inside his mild state of panic that it wasn't actually that bad. Perhaps this was what sex was like. It wasn't quite the "wild throws of ecstatic pleasure" that was described in his copy of _The Advanced Compendium of Professional Literature, Chapter 37 – The Throes of Passion, _but he had figured most of that was made up anyway. The people in those chapters had acted far too illogically for him to believe that's how it actually went down.

It was after these thoughts that John realized he had in fact stopped panicking. He opened his eyes a fraction to see the woman with black hair smiling at him calmly. Once she was sure he was fine, she turned to the waffle-leaving man.

"See? All you need is a woman's touch."

"Pfft, whatever lady. He's still a wimp."

As John sat there chattering his teeth a new cup of tea was being pushed into his hands. He was entirely unsure as to where this tea had come from exactly, but what he did know that it tasted delicious. It smelt slightly of canaries or camomile. Or caramel. Or whatever the word was. In either case, John was left to lean happily back on the hard rusty interior as he let his thoughts wander. Surely he hadn't been almost panicking just a moment before. Oh no, that seemed like a different person entirely. He looked around at a loss of where to put the mysterious tea cup and roughly settled on leaving it squished firmly into the thick layer of mud encasing the floor.

As he smiled casually around the van at the other inhabitants of the small rusty space he was struck by a sudden thought. Inside the van now were all five of the mysterious people who he had listened to inside his lounge earlier while he had played peek-a-boo on the couch, yet there was one rather distinct and voiceless character that was still unaccounted for. That dastardly waffle. It was most certainly dastardly, for it had ... done something that surely qualified it for that name. John really hoped it wasn't being dastardly without permission, that was always so difficult to sort out. Perhaps he should clear up the matter once and for all. At this moment, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to John. "Oh," he could call out conversationally, "How did you get that waffle in my lounge Mister Maple?" In fact, why not? In his present state he couldn't think of any reason not to.

Of course, his statement was met with all manner of worried stares. A few people shot concerned looks towards Sakuya, oblivious as she was with her back towards them, while the blonde Leon was looking around the inside of the van hopefully. After a short moment Tifa politely inquired in his ear as to who Mister Maple was.

John simply rocked backwards and forwards on his seat, smiling giddily at the man opposite him.

The waffle-placing Leon caught onto this hint, questioningly pointed to himself, and after John's happy nod in reply spread his hands in a careless shrug.

"Sorry, what was the question?"

"How _did_ your _waffle _get in my hoose!" John rapidly blinked at his mispronunciation, before he realised that it _in fact_ rhymed with moose! What joy. He mentally filed that away next to Macky Hammy Booth Jay and zoned back in to hear Leon's response.

"Is there a better place to eat a waffle?" He shrugged –

"_Leon _you did not! Tell me you did not!" Four heads swivelled around to stare at Lucca as she fumed quite visibly at Leon. Perhaps she also had a deep-seated hate of strangely appearing waffles. Or perhaps she had known the waffle personally. John tried his best to look empathetic towards Lucca as she continued to fume over Leon's silence.

"That _wasn't _a waffle Leon. Are you precisely telling me right now that you ate a piece of scientific equipment?" Leon raised his eyebrow in reply.

"It _tasted _like a normal waffle."

"_Do-not-lie-to-me!_ Do you have _any _idea how long that thing took to make?! It was genius! And irreplaceable! How could you _eat _a piece of solid _metal?_" Lucca's tirade was accompanied by a dangerous amount of arm flailing and angry pointing, causing her helmet to bobble backwards and forwards. John was finding it highly amusing.

"Listen _kid_, the waffle was just a waffle. No metal, no gears, just waffle. Just what are you trying to accuse me of here-"

"Hang on" Tifa shuffled forward to pop her head between Leon and Lucca's line of sight, "Leon, you're saying that the waffle you ate was just a normal waffle?" Leon nodded solemnly in response. Tifa turned back to Lucca. "I don't think it was the same waffle, Lucca." John couldn't help but giggle softly. As everyone turned to look at him he smiled happily and explained.

"It's a metal waffle! Why would anyone make a _metal waffle_?" He looked around expectantly yet no-one else seemed to see the humour in his statement. Now that he thought about it, it hadn't really made sense when he said it out loud. What a bummer. It had seemed like gold before he put it into words.

Lucca sniffed indignantly.

"It was not simply a _metal waffle_. It was a highly complex transmission signalizer that had been scanning your home for perceived threats since you fell asleep last night. I put it there myself." Leon shifted slightly and jumped back into the conversation.

"Wait, you put your waffle on this nutcase's lounge table as well?" She nodded. "I found _my_ waffle there earlier this morning, and it was definitely edible then. Yours wasn't there." Lucca opened her mouth to argue for her waffle's existence once more but the other British Leon quickly interrupted.

"Is it possible that the first waffle was removed and replaced in the time between both your patrols of the house?" John smiled sweetly to his self and rocked on his seat. Wow, these people had been sneaking around his house without him noticing. His house must have felt so loved.

Before anyone could theorise about the imposter waffle theory the world jolted as the van suddenly stopped. John felt slightly dizzy but was pleased to find himself generally unharmed. The van-driving maid turned in her seat and stated plainly.

"We're here."

* * *

Longest chapter so far = D I'm hoping they'll start getting this long a lot more. You can just work in so much more detail when it's not squished down to a thousand words or so. On a side note, the next Chapter most certainly won't be delayed as much as this one, so there is naught to fear for all you closet John Fans.

Advice for the week, Don't take Funky Smelling Tea from strangers xD Seriously.


End file.
